


Growing Pains

by WatermelonTuesdays



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (Adam cheats), Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguments, Cheating, Childhood Friends, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Endgame Sheith, F/M, Fear, Fights, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, Keith is a latchkey kid, Light Angst, Loud arguments, Love Confessions, M/M, Slow Burn, Some of these tags will be for later chapters, Swearing, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29717421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatermelonTuesdays/pseuds/WatermelonTuesdays
Summary: Baby Keith's neighbours always fight, but when he gets scared he has a safe place to go: down to the Shirogane's apartment where Shiro will look after him. Over time, Keith grows up, and though he doesn't expect Shiro to return his feelings, he'll always be there for Shiro. Though thick and thin.
Relationships: Adam/Curtis (Voltron), Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Shiro (Voltron), Nyma/Rolo (Voltron)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 52





	1. Chapter 1

“God DAMN it, Rolo! Did you even hear a word I just said?”

“Of course I did!”

“No! You didn’t! You never fucking listen! You never fucking-!!!”

A booming sound shuttered across the thin walls of the apartment building, tilting the framed picture of Keith’s father and interrupting Nyma’s tirade. Keith shook and scurried from the living room to hide under the kitchen table. 

The yelling wasn’t so bad under the table. Not usually.

It was a good place to hide, with all the sturdy chair legs around him like an honour guard. The sounds of the neighbours fighting were just echoes there, muted enough that Keith couldn’t hear the curses.

He repeated one of the bad words once, a few months ago (which to a five year old seems a very long time away), and the look on his mother’s face had been enough for him to know he should _never_ say it again. 

Nyma said it, though. She said it all the time; but only when she was angry, and Keith had been angry at the time too, so he thought it was ok. 

The words weren’t as scary when _he_ said them, anyways, not like now.

Silence fell over both apartments.

Keith shuddered but stayed in his hiding spot. He’d learned long ago to tell the difference between a pause in a fight and the end of a fight, and this was not the end of it.

It would be ok, though. Krolia would be home soon. The clock said 5 and she always came home at 7, and Keith was smart enough to know that two was not a big number, so he just had to be patient.

Sure enough, the voices started up again a few minutes later. They were louder this time, and the banging of fists against walls, chairs against floors, doors against jambs, became more frequent. 

Rolo started screaming back and Keith quickly put his hands over his ears. 

He hated it when Rolo screamed. His voice was so loud and angry. When Rolo screamed the banging noises got worse, Nyma’s voice got sharper, and the fight lasted much longer.

“Don’t you fuckin’- DON’T you fucking _LOOK_ at me!” Nyma screamed, loud enough to hear even in his safe place. 

Keith teetered in indecision for about five seconds, rolling back and forth on his feet, hugging his knees to his chest, his fingers curled tight over his ears.

Then he launched himself out from under the table and ran to the door. 

He wasn’t allowed to slide the bolt or open the door when Krolia wasn’t home, but he did. He had to stand on his tippy-toes to do it. He opened the door quietly and closed it like a mouse, holding the door back with one hand while he pulled it closed with the other until he heard the faint click.

Then he ran.

He took the long way down around the corner to the far staircase so that he wouldn’t have to pass Nyma and Rolo’s doors. He raced down the stairs, spiraling down and down until he was on the third floor. He moved like Nyma and Rolo’s angry shouts were following him, though they were now many stories over his head and lost to the various sounds of life behind the doors of the apartment complex.

He stopped at the door with the brightly painted wooden wreath that said “The Shirogane’s” and had a picture of a snowman and snowwoman hugging a small snowchild. They left it up year round because Mrs. Shiro’s Mom liked the wide smiles painted on their snowy faces.

Keith tried the door before knocking, and when he heard the ‘thunk’ of the deadbolt hitting the doorjamb his stomach sank to the floor. He sniffed at tears he had been holding back for the last half hour and rubbed dolefully at his nose.

He tried again just for good measure, and when the door still refused to open, he stood there, his small body wracked with indecision. 

He wasn’t supposed to leave the apartment, but if he had to, he was supposed to go to Shiro’s. He _really_ wasn’t supposed to go anywhere else; his mom would eat him for dinner if he tried. But he really, really, really didn’t want to go home. 

His eyes were starting to prick with unshed tears when he heard the sound of angels: the beautiful sound of a deadbolt turning in the door.

Twelve year old, Takashi Shirogane, “Shiro,” Keith’s personal saviour, peered out the door at a sorrowful and desperate looking Keith.

“Keith?” Shiro opened the door wide and ushered the small boy into the apartment, locking the door behind him. “Does your mom know you’re here?”

Keith shook his head while he wiped his eyes. He headed immediately to Shiro’s bedroom. Shiro followed and watched as the young boy crawled into his bed and wrapped himself in blankets, his small hands kneading and folding at the star-patterned comforter like a kitten.

Shiro’s computer was still lit up and making sounds from the game he had been playing, but he walked past it, grabbed a comic book off his desk, and settled down on the bed beside Keith. He didn’t ask why Keith was down here when his mom wasn’t home, he had a clear enough idea already.

He settled his hand down on top of Keith’s head and pet softly over his thin, scraggly hair.

“What’s that?” Keith asked after a while, poking a chubby finger at Shiro’s comic book.

“That’s Spiderman.”

“No. That egg thing.” 

“That’s Egg Fu, he’s a bad guy.”

“That’s a _person_?”

“Yup.”

“Wow!”

Shiro chuckled and looked down at Keith, his large blue eyes wide with wonder at the comic. “Feeling better?”

Keith nodded and shuffled closer to look at the comic some more.

Shiro read most of the comic book to Keith, then took out his math homework while Keith watched and praised him for being smart enough to understand all those funny scribbles. 

Just before 7, Shiro walked Keith back up to his apartment, checking that the yelling had stopped entirely before leaving. He waited at the door until he heard the deadbolt slide back into place, then walked quietly back down to his apartment, his mind clouded with worry about his young friend.

Maybe he could offer again to Krolia to babysit after school? She didn’t want to distract from his schoolwork, but maybe if he explained how good Keith was about letting Shiro work in peace?

Maybe if he told her how scared he had been…

Shiro sighed and locked himself back into his own apartment. He would have to talk to his mom first, but even if he had to go fetch Keith himself every night and drop him back off before Krolia got home, he would.

He’d do anything for the little guy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! I'm excited to show you guys this fic!
> 
> This first chapter can kind of be read alone, I originally just wrote it as a short one-shot about them as kids. But then the power of Sheith took over and I needed to see them together and happy so now we have 6 chapters of this!
> 
> Don't forget to kudos and comment! I live off your likes <3
> 
> And you can always follow me for more Sheithy content!  
> Twitter: [@WTuesdays](https://twitter.com/WTuesdays)  
> Tumblr: [WatermelonTuesdays](https://watermelontuesdays.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith is a few years older, but old habits die hard and he still finds himself wandering down to Shiro's apartment most days. Only this time, he meets someone new.

Eleven year old Keith packed up his homework into his bookbag with a heavy and exasperated sigh. He honestly didn’t know how they did it; how Nyma and Rolo had managed to stay together for so long when it felt like they fought every second day. And if they weren’t fighting, they were…

“Ahh, harder Rolo! HARDER!”

Keith slung his bookbag over his shoulder with a grunt and sulked out of the room. At this point, he’d prefer the fighting over the angry make up sex. It was too early in Keith’s adolescence for him to be able to make sense of it all, or to know if he found the violent grunting noises intriguing or disgusting. It was definitely one of the two, or possibly both – but he didn’t want to sit around to listen and figure it out.

So, Keith did what he always did.

He let himself into the Shiroganes’s apartment with the special key they had given him years back. The lights were on in the kitchen, but everywhere else was dim, and there was no answer when he called out a low “hullo?”

He shrugged, grabbed a handful of snacks from the cupboard, and headed for Shiro’s room, thinking he’d either find the teen there, lost in a video game, or he’d be truly alone so he could finish his homework in peace.

There was a faint flickering light under Shiro’s door, and the sounds of a monster movie greeted Keith as he turned the knob.

Keith stepped quietly into the room like it was no big deal, he tossed one of his snacks onto the bed without actually looking in that direction and moved to the desk in the far corner. It was too old-hat to bother saying hi; Shiro wouldn’t even pause the movie for something as commonplace as Keith coming over.

A wet smacking noise and the sound of shuffling blankets broke Keith’s nonchalance, and he turned a quizzical eye to Shiro’s bed. 

Keith fell into Shiro’s desk chair with a little more force than he had meant to.

“K-Keith!” Shiro’s voice sounded oddly high as he gripped at the blankets around his waist. 

Another boy sat in the bed beside him, looking beet red from embarrassment, both his glasses and his hair askew in a manner so obvious even Keith understood. 

Keith felt his face heat into a shade that would likely match the other boys’, and he clutched his bookbag to his chest out of instinct.

“H-hey. Shiro. Sorry, I, uh… Nyma and Rolo, you know… Uhhh…. I can go, though.” Keith felt painfully awkward. He jumped out of the chair and to his feet, his eyes looking everywhere except for the bed.

“No, we were just–” Shiro’s pause was significant, “watching a movie. It’s fine. You can stay.” 

“I… you sure?” Keith couldn’t deny that he wanted to stay; he would always rather be in Shiro’s room than anywhere else in the world. But staying now felt wrong somehow.

“Of course,” Shiro said pleasantly.

Keith almost agreed, but then he saw the flat look in the eye of the other boy and he shook his head. “No, it’s ok. I have homework anyway. I’ll just… do it out here.”

Keith rushed out of the room then leaned back against the closed door feeling his heart pounding in his chest. He was not sure what that was just now, but he was sure he did not like it. 

“Sorry about that,” Keith heard Shiro say to the other boy. “His neighbours fight a lot, so he comes down to study sometimes. I should’ve warned you it might happen.”

The other boy sniffed with an attitude that dropped lead into Keith’s gut. “Well, he definitely ruined the mood,” he snipped.

Keith could hear Shiro’s grimace in his voice, “I’m sorry, Adam. But, he’s just a kid, I can’t just kick him out.”

Keith pulled away from the door before he could hear any more. 

Shiro had called him a kid. That stung worse than almost anything else Keith could imagine. “Just a kid.” Was that all he was?

Sure, Shiro was eighteen, and Keith was eleven, it would be a bit of a stretch to say that Keith was Shiro’s best friend in the same way that Shiro was Keith’s. But still. Just a kid? 

Keith had known Shiro for as long as he could remember. Had Shiro always thought of him that way? When he used to sneak Keith down to this very apartment after school every day and bring him back before his mother got wise – that was what? Just him taking care of a kid?

Just pity for the poor, scared, neighbour kid?

Keith slumped into Shiro’s living room and dropped himself down in front of the coffee table, spreading his homework out in front of him so that he would at least look productive if anyone came to check on him.

He stared blankly at his writing assignment, feeling vaguely like he had been punched in the stomach. His mind was re-writing eleven years of friendship and understanding in one go, and it was a painful process. He couldn’t keep the sulking pout from his face as he bounced his pencil idly on its eraser.

That was how Mrs. Shirogane found him some twenty minutes later when she returned with her groceries. 

“Keith,” she said in a winded voice, dropping her pile of bags in the small entryway. “What are you doing out here? Isn’t Takashi home?”

Keith shrugged moodily, then said “They’re watching a movie.”

He watched Shiro’s mom repeat the words to herself; it was a moment before she understood, and then she was off down the hallway to Shiro’s room. Keith heard her knock, but he tried to ignore her words as he quickly pulled himself up and began putting away the groceries she had left behind.

“Takashi, what are you doing locked away with your boyfriend while poor Keith sits out in the living room by himself?”

Keith flinched twice at the words. First from the guilt Mrs. Shirogane had laid on her son and second from “boyfriend.”

Shiro had a boyfriend?

“He said he had homework,” Shiro defended loudly, his voice growing louder as he followed his mother back to the kitchen. “He didn’t want to be distracted by the movie.”

Shiro pulled one of the bags out of Keith’s hands and patted a quick touch to the top of his head before he got to work sorting vegetables into the fridge. 

“Don’t lie to me, young man. You kicked Keith out to be alone with Adam, didn’t you?” Mrs. Shirogane’s voice accused Shiro of more than just kicking Keith out of the room, and everyone knew it. 

Shiro’s shoulders tensed against the fridge door, and he made a sound like he didn’t know what to say. Keith slipped some cans into their place in the cupboard and looked to Shiro’s mom, then over her shoulder to where Shiro’s boyfriend hovered nervously.

“They weren’t doing anything,” Keith said solemnly. He had always been a better liar than Shiro. “It was just the movie was too distracting. You know how I love scary movies.”

Mrs. Shirogane looked at Keith like she was debating whether or not to believe him. Then she passed Shiro another bag of veggies and the topic was dropped.

Once the groceries were all put away, Keith returned to his seat on the floor in front of his open and untouched homework. A moment later, Shiro slid into the seat on the couch behind him while his boyfriend perched awkwardly on the recliner opposite.

“Thanks for the save back there, Keith,” Shiro said, ruffling Keith’s hair so that Keith had to run his fingers through it to pull out the tangles. “This is Adam, by the way. Adam, this is Keith.”

“Hey,” Adam said with a nod of his head and Keith returned the gesture. 

“What’cha working on?” Shiro leaned over his shoulder to look down at the blank pages his teacher had given him.

Keith shrugged, “Writing assignment. What scares me the most.”

“Oh, that’s easy. Big scary dogs.”

Keith could hear the smirk in Shiro’s tone and he rolled his eyes. “That was one time, because you let an eight year old watch Cujo.”

“Sure, sure. You need any help with anything?”

“No, I’m ok. You can go back to your movies. I’ll head back up before mom gets home.”

Shiro stood up and motioned for Adam to lead the way back to his bedroom. He paused at the hallway and turned back to Keith.

“They’re, uh, fighting pretty bad again, are they?” he asked quietly.

Keith looked up from his papers to see that Shiro’s eyes were downcast and guilt-ridden.

“Nah, not really. They’re just on day-three of the make up, so…” he pulled a face that made Shiro blush and laugh awkwardly. “They’re probably done by now.”

“Well, take your time. You don’t have to leave right away.”

Keith smiled down at his papers; he could hear Adam call to Shiro from down the hall, so he waved his friend off and made an effort to look like he was buckling down on his schoolwork.

Keith’s pencil hovered over his paper for a long few minutes before he settled on what to write. He glanced around the apartment, checking to make sure Mrs. Shirogane wasn’t anywhere nearby. Then he began to write.

_The thing that scares me most is getting left behind by the people I care about. Or that they’ll find someone they like better than me…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Poor Keith is having a bit of a rough time. 
> 
> The next chapter will have another time jump. I hope you guys like them, it's the only way to fit a decades-long slow burn romance into a reasonable amount of words lol. 
> 
> Thanks for all your comments and kudos, they really mean a lot to me!
> 
> And you can always follow me on twitter or tumblr if you're feeling like it.  
> Twitter: [@WTuesdays](https://twitter.com/WTuesdays)  
> Tumblr: [WatermelonTuesdays](https://watermelontuesdays.tumblr.com/)


End file.
